feffing the faith of Chrift who do not even thus much, but hope to compound for one favourite fin by the practice of a few eafy virtues. "Some, who imagine that they may commute with God by giving the fruit of their labour, or the fuperfluity of their fortunes, for the fin of their fouls, are charitable perhaps to the poor, and relentless to their enemies; or they are gentle and placable, and therefore indulge their appetites in drunkenness and fenfuality, founding their confidence -on that text of Scripture where it is faid, that "charity fhall cover a multitude of fins." But the oracles of truth have affured us, that Chrift hath no concord with Belial; and that he who keepeth the whole law, and yet habitually offendeth in one point, is guilty of all." P. 81. The difcourfe on " the Difpofitions fit for Heaven" (feventh) proceeds on the highly probable affumption, received by the foundeft divines, "that the habits which we fhall have formed here will accompany us into the other world," and that confequently, we cannot by any means be fitted for heaven, with out we fhall have acquired heavenly difpofitions. The illuf tration of this opinion, in the clofe of the difcourfe, has fomething ftriking and rather novel in it. "No man, however defirous of making all his neighbours happy, would invite to the fame entertainment, and mix in the fame company, the licentious and the modeft, the profane and the pious, the cruel and the merciful, or a troop of midnight revellers and a company of grave moralifls. As every one fees that fuch heterogeneous affociations would render all parties miferable, every one may likewife perceive, that were the wicked admitted, with all their evil habits in full force, to a fhare of the inheritance of the faints in light,” heaven itself would be converted into hell." P. 108.. In these feven difcourfes, befides what we have already noticed, there is nothing to which we should object, except in the fecond, where there is certainly too general a cenfure of other divines, whom the author accufes of "fupinely fuffering things to take their courfe, without exerting one effort to ftem the torrent of infidelity which threatens to overwhelm us." P. 23. Whenever this difcourfe may have been writ tcn, we cannot conceive that fuch a cenfure could be deferved; but lately there is undoubted evidence, from publications of every kind, that the clergy have very generally been attentive to the neceflities of the times, and have been exerting themselves to counteract the threatened evils; nor is there any reafon to doubt, that the private efforts of thofe, who have not employed the prefs as their ally, have been fully propor tioned to the zeal which has been thus manifefted to the pub lic. At At the head of the fecond clafs of difcourfes ftands one which we commended at its feparate publication in 1794 Of the ninth we also made a fhort mentiont; but certainly more flight than, on a fecond perufal, its merits feem to demand. The former of thefe gives a view of a depravity of manners with refpect to religion, which we hope and believe to be exaggerated, "Of young men bred to the liberal profeffions," fays Dr. G. "two thirds at leaft are avowed infidels." P. 114. Affuredly no fuch proportion has appeared of late to fubfift, in this part of the United Kingdom; and, if it did in the northern part, at the time when the difcourfe was produced, we truft that more wifdom now prevails there alfo, in that clafs of fociety. "A friend of mine," it is faid foon after," whofe veracity cannot be doubted, affured me, that of thirty young men, compofing a literary fociety of which he was a member, there were but three who had the courage to profefs themselves Chriftians." P. 115. This is tremendous: but, though the ignorance and precipitance of extreme youth too often lead to a fancied rather than a real infidelity, we should hope that even of thefe here mentioned, the larger part, on maturer thought and knowledge, would abandon the error of their ways. No fuch fact, however, has come to our knowledge in this part of the kingdom; and others, which have fallen under our obfervation, lead us to feel fome confidence, that a much better ftate of opinions at prefent fubfifts, even among the younger candidates for profeffional diflinctions. In the ninth Sermon, after fhowing that finful nations were often employed to punish the chofen people, the author gives a very ufeful caution againft the falfe hope, that the French, on account of their wickednefs, will not be permitted to prevail. In this point of view, the following paffage affuredly deferves a notice, which we regret not having given on the former occafion. "The impiety of the French hinders them not from being properly employed as the "rod of God's anger, and the ftaff of his indignation;" and correct notions of the divine juftice warrant us to believe, that when they fhall have anfwered the end for which they are fo employed, they will as certainly be punished as the ancient ALfyrians, who were turned loofe upon the world for a fimilar purpose. "This conclufion is not the refult of mere abftract reasoning. Amidst all the enormities perpetrated in that finful nation, the hand of divine Providence has ever been moft confpicuous. Whilft the revolutionary government has been preferved under different afpects, for the purpofe of fcourging the furrounding nations, thofe who See Brit. Crit. vol. iv. p. 80. + Ibid. vol. vi. p. 428. framed framed the heterogeneous machine have all been maffacred by thofe who new modelled it; and every change which has been made in its form, has been attended with the execution of those by whom it was previously adminiftered. Thus have the moft guilty regularly executed the divine vengeance upon each other; and we may reasonably hope, from the impartial juftice of our Father who is in heaven, that when this unparalleled tyranny has aufwered the ends for which it has fo long been permitted to carry defolation through the earth, it will be as completely overthrown as the defpotifm of ancient Babylon. "The fucceffes of this abandoned people, therefore, fhould not incite us to despair, but to a thorough reformation of our national manners. Let us fpeedily return to that fober and enlightened piety, that ferious fenfe of religion, and that regular attendance on divine worship, which characterized our ancestors, and "made their light fo fhine before men, that their good works were feen, and their Father who is in heaven glorified." Let us, in the education of our children, carefully guard their minds againft that deteftable fpirit of infidelity, which, though very generally diffufed through the younger part of the nation, has been justly and emphatically filed "the bane of common life, the opprobrium of common fenfe, and the dishonour even of our common humanity." P. 158. In the twelfth discourse, we find an opinion combated which has never fallen under our observation, It is thus ftated in the opening of the Sermon. "Among the innumerable devices of the difcontented to difturb the public peace, and to fewer the powers of government, one of the moft extraordinary is a doctrine which has of late been preached with great zeal, and of which the object is to prove, that men have rights to maintain, and of course that all wars, even defenfive wars, are finful," P. 211. If fuch a doctrine has been held, it must have been by the fame fanatics whom, on other points, the author oppofes; but,not having met with it, we can only give credit to Dr. G. for the accuracy of his obfervation. We have seen, indeed, fermons and declamations against war, under all poffible circumftances; but, if this denial of all rights made a part of the argument, it has efcaped our recollection. In the thirteenth Sermon, an allufion is made to the rafh teftimonies given, a little before it was written, at Maidstone, in a manner which, if it tends to perpetuate the fhame of the offending parties, does no more than truth and juftice demand. (See p. 240.) With refpect to the unfair practices employed in the times of fcarcity, the following note is important, as containing a direct contradiction to fome theorifts, who thought fit to deny what the community in general appeared to feel. This fact, however, has been controverted with much vehemence by the implicit believers of all the affertions of Dr. Smith; and fome have even ventured to affirm, that the crimes of foreftalling and regrating are, like the crime of witchcraft, impoffible to be committed. Could mankind live for a month, or even a week, without food, I fhould indeed confider it as very difficult, if not impoffible, to raise, by any combination, the price of corn above its juft proportion. It would not be easy, if at all practicable, for the manufacturers of broad cloth to raife its price by partial combinations to keep it back from the market; because a man may wear an old coat till he can procure a new one from a diftance, or till the combination around him shall be diffolved, and the manufacturers, as ufual, expose their goods to fale. Far different is the cafe with refpect to corn. 'The poor, who conftitute the largest part of the inhabitants of every country, are feldom fo provident as to lay up any part of the food of one year to meet the deficiencies of another. To market they must go from month to month, and from week to week; and I fee not why the farmers and corn-dealers of a large district, taking advantage of an unfavourable feason, should find it impoffible to enter into an agreement with each other to bring no corn to market till they fhall be offered for it the price which they have fixed as adequate. The poor mult have food at whatever price; and they cannot themselves import it from a foreign country, or even wait till it be brought from a diftance in their own. No man is better entitled to an adequate reward for his hazard and his labour than the cultivator of the earth; but that the farmers, as in many places of Scotland, fhould have completely enriched themselves during two years of fearcity, and that in thofe years they fhould have offered for land rents in money higher by much than were ever before heard of, are circumstances which I can! not but think extraordinary! It feems likewife extraordinary, that fome of them should have difpofed of no part of the crop of 1799 in July 1800; and that this was a fact, is known to every man who, at that period, looked around him from the high ground in this county. Nay, it is furely fomewhat wonderful, that, at the very time I am writing this note (Nov. 23d, 1802), the people of Stirling pay for the quartern loaf of wheaten bread three halfpence more than is paid for it in London!" P. 314. We cannot allow ourselves further to expatiate on the particulars of this volume, but muft by no means withhold our general teftimony to its merit. The ftyle of Dr. G. is correft, and frequently energetic; his zeal against the corruptions of the continent, and thofe more particularly which at any time, or in any degree, have fpread among ourselves, is eminent and laudable; nor will it be for want of found argu An expreffion occurs in p. 359, which feems unauthorized,"his parents dying of heart-break," but fuch instances are rare. Z z BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXII. DEC. 1803. ments, ments, or appofite authorities from fcripture, if any reader fhall rife from the perufal of this volume without finding himfelf improved in patriotifm, and all the most important focial principles. BRITISH CATALOGUE. POETRY. ART. 12. Egypt; a Poem, defcriptive of that Country and its Inhabitants. Written during the late Campaign, by M. M. Clifford, Efq, of the Twelfth or Prince of Wales's Light Dragoons. 12mo. 79 PP. 4s. 6d. Evans. 1802. Though no cargoes of fcientific men accompanied our expedition to Egypt, the British deliverers of that country achieved discoveries in literature which had escaped the boasted Scavans of France; and the Poem before us ftands, we believe, unrivalled by any poetical compofition produced on the fubject of that country by our enemies. It is, indeed, confidering the circumftances in which it was written, and the military profeffion of its author, a work of fingular merit; and would, in our opinion, do no difcredit to any poet of the prefent day. Mr. Clifford informs us it is published" as it was compofed, during the avocations of military duty, in a small tent on the fands of Egypt, amidft the orange-groves of Rofetta, or on the tempeftuous bofom of the Mediterranean.' This apology was not, however, neceffary; for, though fome paffages might have been improved, and the Poem condenfed to advantage by a revifal, we cannot, as a descriptive poem, with the ideas to have been arranged otherwife than as they arofe in the mind of the author. He has divided it into three Can " tos; the firft of which is chiefly defcriptive of the country; the fe cond relates principally to its hiftory, and the manners of its inhabitants; and the third contains mifcellaneous reflections on the events of the campaign, and the fingular country in which it took place. This is but a faint outline of the Poem, which, being moftly defcriptive, does not preferve, and does not require, a methodical arrangement. We will give famples of the author's ftyle and manner; which, we doubt not, will induce every reader of tafte to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with his work. Speaking, in Canto I. of one of See the review of Walsh's Journal, Brit. Crit. vol. xxi. p. 291. the |